When El Sangre pulled out of his racing gallop and struck out up a slope at his natural gait, the ground-devouring pace, Terry Hollis was panting and twisting in the saddle as though the labor of the gallop had been his. They climbed and climbed, and still his mind was involved in a haze of thought. It cleared when he found that there were no longer high mountains before him. He drew El Sangre to a halt with a word. The great stallion turned his head as he paused and looked back to his master with a confiding eye as though waiting willingly for directions. And all at once the heart of Terence went out to the blood-bay as it had never gone before to any creature, dumb or human. For El Sangre had known such pain as he himself was learning at this moment. El Sangre was giving him true trust, true love, and asking him for no return.
The stallion, following his own will, had branched off from the Bear Creek trail and climbed through the lower range of the Blue Peaks. They were standing now on a mountain-top. The red of the sunset filled the west and brought the sky close to them with the lower drifts of stained clouds. Eastward the winding length of Bear Creek was turning pink and purple. The Cornish ranch had never seemed so beautiful to Terry as it was at this moment. It was a kingdom, and he was leaving, the disinherited heir.
He turned west to the blare of the sunset. Blue Mountains tumbled away in lessening ranges—beyond was Craterville, and he must go there today. That was the world to him just then. And something new passed through Terry. The world was below him; it lay at his feet with its hopes and its battles. And he was strong for the test. He had been living in a dream. Now he would live in fact. And it was glorious to live!
And when his arms fell, his right hand lodged instinctively on the butt of his revolver. It was a prophetic gesture, but there, again, was something that Terry Hollis did not understand.
He called to El Sangre softly. The stallion responded with the faintest of whinnies to the vibrant power in the voice of the master; and at that smooth, effortless pace, he glided down the hillside, weaving dexterously among the jagged outcroppings of rock. A period had been placed after Terry's old life. And this was how he rode into the new.
The long and ever-changing mountain twilight began as he wound through the lower ranges. And when the full dark came, he broke from the last sweep of foothills and El Sangre roused to a gallop over the level toward Craterville.
He had been in the town before, of course. But he felt this evening that he had really never seen it before. On other days what existed outside of Bear Valley did not very much matter. That was the hub around which the rest of the world revolved, so far as Terry was concerned. It was very different now. Craterville, in fact, was a huddle of broken-down houses among a great scattering of boulders with the big mountains plunging up on every side to the dull blue of the night sky.
But Craterville was also something more. It was a place where several hundred human beings lived, any one of whom might be the decisive influence in the life of Terry. Young men and old men were in that town, cunning and strength; old crones and lovely girls were there. Whom would he meet? What should he see? A sudden kindness toward others poured through Terry Hollis. After all, every man might be a treasure to him. A queer choking came in his throat when he thought of all that he had missed by his contemptuous aloofness.
One thing gave him check. This was primarily the sheriff's town, and by this time they knew all about the shooting. But what of that? He had fought fairly, almost too fairly.
He passed the first shapeless shack. The hoofs of El Sangre bit into the dust, choking and red in daylight, and acrid of scent by the night. All was very quiet except for a stir of voices in the distance here and there, always kept hushed as though the speaker felt and acknowledged the influence of the profound night in the mountains. Someone came down the street carrying a lantern. It turned his steps into vast spokes of shadows that rushed back and forth across the houses with the swing of the light. The lantern light gleamed on the stained flank of El Sangre.